Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story
(on a postcard)

Nice Things Said AboutUsSam Lipsyte:
"Michael Kimball never ceases to astonish. He is a hero of
contemporary American literature."
Observer:
“Powerful and moving ... breathless”
El Mercurio:
“First, Camus showed us the human condition. Now Kimball
has.”
Time Out London:
“A deep love between an ageing husband and wife is given a
heartbreaking voice ... tender and poignant”
El País:“Haunting and awesome ... beautiful and
intense ... This is a novel from a great talent.”
El Placer de la Lectura:
“A monument to love”
The Glasgow Herald:
“Be warned: this book has the power to make
even the most hard-hearted of readers shed a tear. ...
Kimball has broken into new territory: Us is one
of the most graphic depictions of illness and loss I have
ever read.”
Letras Libres:
Michael Kimball "already delivers the
future of the novel ... [He is] one of the authentic
innovators in contemporary fiction."
Blake Butler:
“There are two books I can remember that ever made me
physically cry. There were the rape scenes in Saramago’s
Blindness, and there was nearly every chapter of
Michael Kimball’s [Us]. While the first hurt
because it was so brutal, Kimball’s was a softer kind of
invocation—as I read it in a bathtub, I could not shake the
feeling of being held, as if somehow the words had
interlaced my skin. This is the essence of the magic
Michael Kimball holds—his sentences come on so taut, so
right there, and yet somehow so calming, it’s as if you are
being visited by some lighted presence.”
El Razón:
“Bathed in tenderness ... touching and breathtaking ... one
of the most moving, heartbreaking, and sad novels of
contemporary American fiction. It is essential.”
Telegraph and Argus:
“This is the saddest book I have ever read and one of the
most beautiful ... One can’t help being aware of his grief
and the great love he feels for his dying wife. It will
make you cry and break your heart but this is one book you
must read.”

I'm reading a piece that I wrote about Dan Flavin's Untitled (To Barnett Newman for 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf') at the launch party for the BMA's new audio tour. This Acoustiguide is a great project that includes lots of wonderful writers (see list, below) and will be free to the public. Here's the museum's press release:

Beginning January 16, 2009, visitors to the BMA can experience a dynamic Acoustiguide audio tour of some of the most beloved and intriguing works in the Museum’s collection. Titled 60 Objects / Countless Stories, this innovative free tour offers an insider’s perspective on the works of art from the BMA’s expert curators, as well as art-inspired stories and poems by celebrated Baltimore writers, including David Simon, Laura Lippman, and Michael Kimball.

In addition to the personal take on objects from the Museum’s expert staff, the BMA invited 23 local writers to chose anobject and submit a piece of writing to be recorded. “There are tons of stories that surround and inform our understanding of objects,” said the project leader Anne Manning, Deputy Director for Education. From Laura Lippman’s musings on Edgar Degas’ Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen to Justin Sirois’ poem on Alberto Giacometti’s Man Pointing, the creativity of these writers adds another dimension to our appreciation of these works of art.

Celebrate the connection between arts and letters with an evening of live readings from the authors featured in this dynamic new Acoustiguide audio tour. Meet the curators, conservators, and writers who contributed to the project, and enjoy an evening of curatorial talks, poetry readings, storytelling, music, and book signings.